This 2-year project is investigating the strategies of legitimation used by Muslim rulers in Islamic Spain and the western Maghrib during the medieval and early modern periods to analyse how they justified and presented their rule to their subjects and to visitors from the Islamic east and Christian Europe. It aims to explore issues of religio-political identity and regional unities and divisions of both historical and contemporary relevance to shed light on an understudied period of this crucial Mediterranean regions' history.

The Spain-North Africa Project (SNAP) is a scholarly initiative to encourage the study of the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghrib as a unified region. For the most part focused on the period spanning from the seventh to the eighteenth century, SNAP brings together scholars from multiple disciplines – including history, art history, literature, philosophy and religious studies – in the belief that the crucial questions in the study of this western Mediterranean region are best addressed in an interdisciplinary fashion treating it as a coherent whole.

European History Online is a transcultural history of Europe on the Internet. The project investigates processes of intercultural exchange in European history whose impact extended beyond state, national and cultural borders. EGO describes Europe as a constantly changing communicative space which witnessed extremely varied processes of interaction, circulation, overlapping and entanglement, of exchange and transfer, but also confrontation, resistance and demarcation.

This project examines the deliberate manipulation and cultivation of the fear and hatred of Jews and Muslims by both secular governments and the Catholic church in southern Europe between 1500-­1800. This was part of a deliberate drive to marginalise jewish and muslim minorities and construct a sense of collective identity around Catholicism. Researcher : François Soyer, Australian Research Coucil postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the History of Emotions at the University of Adelaide.

The Käte Hamburger Collegium for Research in the Humanities "Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe" is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. It is a joint venture between the following disciplines at the Ruhr University, Bochum: Classical Philology, Protestant and Catholic Theology, South Asian Studies, Jewish Studies, Islamic Studies, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Studies, History, Comparative Religion, and Philosophy, and brings toghether scholars from Ruhr University, international fellows, postdoctoral researchers und postgraduates.

In the medieval, late medieval and pre-modern world of Islam, Muslims, Jews and Christians constituted a unique cultural and intellectual commonality. They shared a language, Arabic (and at times Persian), which they spoke in daily life and which they also used for their theological, philosophical, legal and scientific writings. Moreover, they often read the same books, so that a continuous, multi-dimensional exchange of ideas, texts, and forms of discourse was the norm rather than the exception.While this has been amply demonstrated for some selected periods and regions, scholars usually opt for a one-dimensional approach with an (often exclusive) focus on either Muslim, Jewish or Christian authors and their writings. In all three fields and for a variety of reasons, the scholarly investigation of the so-called rational sciences (theology, legal methodology, philosophy and related disciplines) beyond denominational borders is still in the beginning phase. This calls for an entirely new framework for innovative research that systematically crosses the boundaries between three major disciplines of academia and research, viz. Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies and the study of Eastern Christianity. This approach characterizes the work carried out at the Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World.The following four major research areas have been pursued since 2003:- Post-Avicennan Philosophy (1/2/3)- Rationalism and Rational Theology in the Islamicate World and Counterreactions (4/5)- Interreligious Controversies (6)- Digitization of Yemeni manuscripts (7)

The project will focus on theological rationalism in the medieval world of Islam between the 10th and the 13th centuries beyond and across denominational borders. Within this field, all major desiderata have been identified and will be addressed in a number of primary and secondary sub-projects.

Projet ERC - "The Formation of Islam : the view from below"

The FOI project is to write a history of the formation of Islam using the vastly important but largely neglected papyri from Egypt. Until the introduction of paper in the 10th c., papyrus was the Mediterranean world's primary writing material. Thousands of papyrus documents survive, preserving a minutely detailed transcription of daily life, as well as the only contemporary records of Islam's rise and first wave of conquests.

In the early Middle Ages the ethnic and political landscape of Europe was established, while at the same time concepts of religious identification gained in importance. Christianity provided with the Bible a 'repertoire' of patterns for order and orientation that contributed significantly to the shaping of ethnic identity. SCIRE examines the way in which religious and ethnic identities interacted as forms of discourse and practice and thus established a social and cultural matrix for specific ethnic processes. University of Vienna is host institution, the Austrian Academy of Sciences is second beneficiary.

Multidisciplinary team comprised of: researchers from the field of material science; professionals dedicated to the safekeeping of documentary and bibliographic heritage; conservators; and restorers. From the outset, the work has been based on a commitment to the practical application of new technologies in the study of documentary heritage and related interventions.

Copenhagen University’s Materiality in Islam Research Initiative (MIRI) is a research-oriented focus group comprising Danish-based and international scholars who, through a modern appreciation of Islamic art and archaeology, seek to forge cultural and social understanding with the contemporary Muslim world. MIRI is based in the Department of Cross Cultural and Regional Studies (ToRS, the Danish acronym), the Faculty of Humanities, The University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center is dedicated to the research of the History of the Jewish people and its culture in all diasporas and eras. The Center is an integral part of the Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities in Tel Aviv University.